The World’s Most Expensive Cigars
August 18, 2014 Leave a comment
Online ULIPs
August 18, 2014 Leave a comment
Life insurers like HDFC Life, Aviva India and Bajaj Allianz have started focussing heavily on the online platform for selling ULIPS (unit-linked insurance plan), promoting them as low-cost products, in the last few months.These policies are cheaper than their offline counterparts, as the savings made on agents’ commissions are passed on to policyholders in the form of lower premium allocation charges.
Insurers are launching these online Ulips to counter distributors’ reluctance to promote ULIPS . Over the last four years (post September 2010, when IRDA imposed a cap on ULIP charges), many agents and brokers have stopped selling ULIPS.
While the broad structure of a lowcost ULIP sold online is similar to a regular ULIP, slashing of premium allocation charges is the key differentiating feature. HDFC Life’s online ULIP has completely done away with allocation charges.It only charges fund management fee and a risk premium for mortality cover and on this aspect, directly competes with ELSS Mutual funds. The entire premium paid by the customer gets invested. Aviva’s product levies a premium allocation fee of 4-5%, compared to its offline counterpart that charges 8-9%. Bajaj Allianz’s online ULIP levies premium allocation charges ranging from 0-5.5% in the first five years, depending on the premium amount and year. Read more of this post
Now You Know Which Way The Wind Blows
August 18, 2014 Leave a comment
The picture and opinion piece by Madan Sabnavis-Chief Economist at CARE Ratings, below, were published in the ET in the course of the past week.
Corporate HQs Anybody?
August 18, 2014 Leave a comment
So think twice before you fork out rent money.
Lessons From ‘Business Adventures’
August 17, 2014 Leave a comment
Bill Gates recently revealed that his favourite business book is Business Adventures, a 1969 collection of New Yorker articles by John Brooks that illustrate the formation of the modern American corporation. Here are some of its key lessons that are still applicable today:
Innovators need to keep innovating
Gates writes that one of the most instructive stories in the book is the article, “Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox.” After the Xerox 914 hit the mass market in 1960, “xeroxing” a document soon became office parlance. Five years later, Xerox brought in $500 million in revenue. Move a few years into the future, Xerox’s leadership became comfortable resting on its laurels. This attitude would eventually lead to huge losses in the late 1970s as competitors started releasing their own photocopiers. But because Xerox executives didn’t think these ideas fit their core business, they chose not to turn them into marketable products. Others stepped in and went to market with products based on the research that Xerox had done. Gates says, “I’m not alone in seeing this decision as a mistake on Xerox’s part.” Read more of this post
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